


Paths and Pintos

by Burgie



Category: Star Stable Online
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2019-01-09 18:15:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12281859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burgie/pseuds/Burgie
Summary: Louisa discovers a path leading along the Firgrove mountain, and then goes to check out the new horses that have arrived to Jorvik.





	Paths and Pintos

A commonly-known fact in the Peterson-Mcburg herd (as Lisa had begun to fondly refer to Louisa's horse collection) was that Louisa's horses had to get used to their rider's insatiable urge to explore. Often, the new horses would end up being unlucky enough to be taken on an exploration mission, before their skin and bones had toughened enough to deal with the at times dangerous world of Jorvik. It was a common joke among the older horses that Louisa would break their bones as she broke them in. This was only meant in jest, of course, Lisa could (and would) heal both horse and rider if they so much as skinned a knee.

But Caramelpie still felt just a little nervous as his rider rode him away from the Firgrove racing track.

 _"Where are we going?"_ he asked, looking around at his surroundings. It was quite rough-looking out here, not as bad as Dino Valley, but still enough to make him worry about spraining a hoof or tripping over a root or stray branch. And there were those tables in the track, and the hay bales, and the sheep, and all of the fences...

"Just looking at something," said Louisa. "Don't worry, we'll be fine."

 _"I hope so,"_ said Caramelpie, trying not to be too nervous. He didn't spook at much, he had more sense than the average horse, but he still had a healthy fear of being injured. Fortunately, though, Louisa skirted around the worksite, headed instead along the bottom of the mountain. She was looking up at something, and Caramelpie dared to take his eyes off the road for a moment to try and see just what his rider was looking at. All horses knew that humans were strange, but Caramelpie guessed that a Soul Rider was stranger than most humans. He couldn't make out anything strange.

"Does that look like a path to you?" asked Louisa, pointing up. Fortunately, she was riding at a walk, so Caramelpie didn't have to worry about running into anything. Caramelpie angled his head upwards, swivelling his ears around curiously.

 _"Hmm... I don't have the best long-distance vision,"_ said Caramelpie. _"It looks sort of like a ledge?"_

"Oh yeah, I guess you're not as high up as I am," said Louisa. "This girl I was talking to earlier, Luciana, told me that there's a path going along the Firgrove mountain. Apparently, it starts behind the house where the German 'tourists' live."

_"You mean the sp-"_

"Shh!" Louisa cut him off, looking around. She spoke to him in his mind, to keep their secret. _"The spy thing is a secret."_

 _"Oh! But nobody can hear me anyway,"_ said Caramelpie. _"You only hear me in your mind."_

"I know, but other Soul Riders and Generals can hear you too," said Louisa.

 _"Hmm. I don't know how you know that, but good point,"_ said Caramelpie. _"But alright, let's go there."_

"Hopefully he remembered to turn the mines off," said Louisa. Caramelpie whinnied, pinning his ears back.

 _"Mines?"_ he echoed, feeling the urge to run. Louisa laughed.

"Yeah, I still don't know whether or not she was kidding," said Louisa. "But I don't want to find out the hard way."

 _"Me neither,"_ said Caramelpie with a shiver. He headed towards the summer house tentatively, looking around for anything suspicious that he might accidentally step on. He definitely didn't want to be blown up today.

"Hi, Louisa!" a little girl called as Caramelpie finally stepped through the gate. He blew in relief, glad that he'd managed to get there safely.

"Hi, Gretchen," Louisa called back, grinning at the little girl.

"Has the super-secret organisation been in touch with you again yet?" asked Gretchen. Louisa sighed.

"No, Gretchen," said Louisa. "Not yet, but I'll let you know once they do. They trust you, and your family."

"Good," said Gretchen, nodding. "Well, not good that you haven't heard from them, but good that they trust us."

"What do you know about that path going up the mountain?" asked Louisa, pointing.

"Hm?" Gretchen hummed contemplatively. "Oh, that! Yeah, I don't think there's a way up there, but you might be able to get up there on your horse."

"You think so?" asked Louisa. Caramelpie whinnied, pinning his ears back. Oh no, it was one of those adventures!

"Yeah! Here, take my camera," said Gretchen, grabbing it from the table on the verandah and then running back out with it. She held it up to Louisa, and Louisa gladly took it. "Be sure to take plenty of pictures on this investigation, Agent Louisa."

"I will," said Louisa, and Caramelpie felt a flash of affection in Louisa's emotions. The other running joke among the herd was that Louisa secretly loved children and would love some of her own, and now Caramelpie was seeing that first-hand. First-hoof? No, first-hand. First-hoof just sounded silly. "C'mon, boy." Louisa's heels gently digging into his sides brought Caramelpie out of his thoughts, and he cantered up the slope, though he wasn't sure why he could detect faint fear from his rider.

 _"What's wrong?"_ asked Caramelpie, hoping that there wasn't anything dangerous just around the corner.

"Just memories," said Louisa. "Ages ago, there was this guy called Mr Kembell living here. He had these dogs, and this slope made it tricky to evade them."

 _"But they're gone now, right?"_ asked Caramelpie, a shiver working its way through him at the thought of sharp claws and snapping jaws.

"Oh yeah, they're long gone," said Louisa. "They were too violent for the 'tourists', much as Gretchen wanted to keep them. Her parents convinced her to make do with a German Shepherd."

 _"Good,"_ said Caramelpie, and picked up the pace until Louisa stopped him beneath a little ledge.

"Well, there's the start of the path," said Louisa. "Think we can get up there?"

 _"No,"_ said Caramelpie. Louisa, clearly, had other ideas, backing him up and then approaching the wall at a gallop. _"No!"_ Caramelpie whinnied, but it was too late. They crashed into solid stone, and Caramelpie stepped back, snorting.

"Sorry!" said Louisa. "Just thought that we'd make it."

 _"It's a solid wall!"_ Caramelpie neighed. _"What, am I a ghost horse now?"_

"No. Though, Winterspirit might be able to phase through it..." Louisa mused, humming thoughtfully.

 _"And you would fall off because you are solid,"_ said Caramelpie.

"Darn, you're right," said Louisa. "But I can at least take photos of the trail from down the bottom. C'mon, let's go do that."

Caramelpie trotted along the base of the mountain, pleased to be on solid ground and not taking crazy jumps, while his rider took photos of the path. She got as close to it as she could, even though Caramelpie worried about the risks she was taking, following the path until they came to the little hut overlooking Firgrove.

"Well, we can't get any further up than this," said Louisa, craning her neck up to see where the path went. "And I can't get any good photos from this vantage point. I'll see if I can still see the path from within Firgrove."

 _"I hope you're not planning on jumping down from up here,"_ said Caramelpie.

"Sometimes you sound like Goldie," said Louisa. "But don't worry, we're not jumping down from up here."

 _"Oh, good,"_ said Caramelpie, relaxing as his rider turned him around to ride back down the mountain.

"We're going to slide down over a rock down here," Louisa continued, and Caramelpie wondered, once again, what he'd gotten himself into.

After taking the last photo and being pleased that the path was quite visible even from down here in Firgrove, Louisa dismounted and went into the cafe, where she inserted the camera card into her phone and then uploaded the photos to her blog. Maybe her followers would be as excited about this new discovery as she was.

And then, after returning Gretchen's camera and thanking her for lending it to her, Louisa rode Caramelpie up to Minka so that they could train on the Firgrove race tracks. But Louisa was a little distracted in the race, staring up at the path whenever it came into sight. So much so that Caramelpie had to take matters into his own hooves and leap over a few jumps himself, and he had to dodge around several trees.

 _"Watch where you're going,"_ Caramelpie muttered after they'd finally finished their training. But Louisa was too busy looking at her phone.

"Aww," said Louisa. "That path isn't new at all. Reed says that it's been there for years, and that she used to be able to climb up it."

 _"So I risked my neck for nothing?"_ said Caramelpie.

"'fraid so, little buddy," said Louisa, petting his mane. "That's a bummer. But I know how to cheer myself up."

 _"And how is that?"_ asked Caramelpie as Louisa directed him down the road.

"I'm gonna get me some afternoon delight," said Louisa. Caramelpie would have blushed if it was within a horse's capacity to do so.

Once she'd reached Cape West Fishing Village, Louisa dismounted Caramelpie outside her home.

"Can I trust you to get over to the stables yourself?" asked Louisa.

 _"Yes,"_ said Caramelpie, and set off at a canter. While he was getting his tack removed and his coat and mane and tail brushed, the other horses spoke to him.

 _"Rough day?"_ asked Peppermint.

 _"Our rider has discovered a new path running along the side of the Firgrove mountains,"_ said Caramelpie. _"In the races, I had to take control or we would have run right into a tree!"_

 _"That's an occupational hazard of being the horse of a Soul Rider,"_ said Silvermist. _"My son has told me all about it."_

 _"Come back to me when you've had to lead her through Pandoria,"_ said Goldmist.

 _"But don't worry, she has a lot of horses to train now so you'll probably only have to put up with this for five days,"_ said Smokeeye.

 _"Yeah, and it'll probably be fine,"_ said Starlord. _"Or you could die. But Lisa will heal you."_

 _"Good,"_ said Caramelpie. _"It's just five days."_

Louisa was still lying in bed with nothing on later that evening when her phone buzzed with the expected texts from Eddie and Ferdinand, and then another four times.

"Hm?" she hummed sleepily, sitting up. Lisa was not shy about ogling her bare skin as the sheet feel away. Louisa put her glasses on. "Huh. Didn't expect that."

"Didn't expect what?" asked Lisa, leaning over her girlfriend's shoulder to see. "Ooh, new horses."

"They look pretty," said Louisa.

"Want to go look at them up close?" asked Lisa. "I have a lot of money."

"And I have, like, twenty horses to train," said Louisa. "They're beautiful but I won't buy them right now."

"Alright," said Lisa, giving her a kiss on the cheek. "Wanna look at them anyway?"

"Heck yeah," said Louisa, and got out of bed.

After getting dressed, Louisa grabbed Winterspirit and Lisa grabbed Starshine, and the two women headed straight for the manor where the closest horse was.

"Hello hello, you look like another Arabian I want," said Louisa, admiring the beautiful mare's chestnut spots.

"Apparently, these ones are Pinto Arabians, or Pintabians," said Lisa, reading the little info slip on the wall.

"Cool," said Louisa. "And the next one is in... Fort Pinta."

"Hello, easy name," said Lisa when she saw the pretty bay pinto at the fort.

"You shall be my Cola," said Louisa, giving the mare's nose a pet. "And the last one is in Crescent Moon Village. We can swing by the horse market after we go to help out Eddie and Ferdinand."

"Sounds like a plan," said Lisa, following her girlfriend down to the ferry.

"Oh my gosh, look at that little flick of white on his side," Louisa cooed, her fingers following the pattern on the horse. Winterspirit stood behind them, and Louisa was secretly a little glad to have that cold thing not between her legs anymore.

"They're all gorgeous," said Lisa. "How can you resist just getting one?"

"Because I know damn well that I have over twenty horses to train," said Louisa. "Don't worry, my pretty, I'll be back for you later."

"Sinister much?" said Lisa with a laugh, and Louisa attempted an evil laugh as she mounted Winterspirit again. She almost needed to wear thermal underwear when she rode him. Maybe the Kallters would have some special tack for winter spirits...


End file.
